MANSFIELD — Laura Burns will likely never put on ice skates again.
A horrible fall while skating on the famous rink at Rockefeller Center in New York City on Dec. 27 left the 1st Ward Mansfield City Council member with broken bones in her skull and bleeding on her brain.
After spending five days in Bellevue Hospital (the oldest public hospital in the United States), Burns now continues a long, slow recovery at home.
“I have a memory of what happened (on the ice), but I honestly don’t know if it’s real memory,” Burns said in a phone interview Tuesday afternoon.
Burns, who took up ice skating in college in the 1990s after growing up on roller blades, flew to NYC on Dec. 27 with her 12-year-old daughter, Sylvia. It was a mother-daughter trip aimed at “doing all of the touristy” things.
Burns made reservations on the fabled ice rink for 2:10 p.m. on their first day, joining a crowded rink of skaters.
“I knew I was going to have to adjust a little bit (back on the ice). I know how to keep from falling. I know how to be safe. None of it worked,” she said.
Burns never made it all the way around the rink once.
“I remember seeing a couple sitting on the wall next to the rink. Someone told them they couldn’t sit there and they jumped down (just as Burns approached). I don’t know if they hit me when they jumped down. I just lost my balance,” she said.
“The next thing I knew I was waking up in the ambulance,” she said.
Burns praised the work of her daughter after the accident.
“Props to my kid, who communicated to everyone she was my child. She said, ‘Here is my mom’s insurance card.’ Once we got to the hospital, she called my husband, Matt, and then handed the phone to the medical professionals who explained to him everything that was going on,” she said.
“She stayed with me in the very busy Bellevue ER all day and into the night. My husband rushed to the airport, but he didn’t get there until 1 a.m.
“The ER at Bellevue (a hospital initially founded in 1736) is not a spacious place. There are no rooms .. just curtains between beds. You hear everything … when someone throws up or screams … it’s not a great atmosphere. It gives me a lot of gratitude for (medical facilities) we have back here in Mansfield,” she said.
“My daughter is a little bit of a hero in my eyes. I don’t know if I could have been that possessed and known what to do at that age,” Burns said.
“I was conscious in the emergency room. I remember them putting an IV into my arm and thinking to myself, ‘I can’t even feel that,'” she said.
The staff at Bellevue explained to Burns and her husband the extent of her injuries, which included a broken bone in her right temporal lobe and also a break in her occipital bone in the back part of her skull.
“Both of them started to bleed (into her brain),” said Burns. “The bleeding from the temporal lobe went into my ear canal.”
Burns said she wanted to come home as quickly as possible.
“I just kept telling them I wanted to come home. ‘Please don’t make me stay here any longer,'” she said.
“The neurologists and medical staff told me once the bleeding had stopped, then we could talk about the next steps toward going home. Until then, they just patted me on the head and smiled,” Burns said.
A data specialist with Charles River Laboratories who earned a bachelor’s degree in biology from Oral Roberts University in 2003, Burns said the medical staff at Bellevue conducted a myriad of tests and even put her in a neck brace until they were able to confirm nothing involving her neck or spine was damaged.
Once the bleeding stopped, and Burns was able to pass physical therapy and occupational therapy evaluations, she was discharged.
Her husband had already flown home with Sylvia and driven back to New York with his cousin since Burns was not allowed to fly. Burns was discharged on Dec. 31 and the trio began the trek back to Mansfield.
“We rang in New Year’s Eve at a truck stop in Pennsylvania. I was not even aware it was New Year’s Eve, but there was a little bar there and I saw people celebrating. It was an adventure,” she said.
Burns said she is trying to be patient during her recovery at home.
“It’s going to be a couple of months before I can function. Right now, I still have a lot of trouble with dizziness. I can be sitting still and the room spins,” said Burns, who has lost her sense of smell and taste and remains sensitive to light.
“I am having a lot of trouble with fatigue. My comprehension is poor. It’s just very frustrating,” she said.
“My ice skating days are done.”
Burns said she looks for the positives every day, now working with local health-care providers.
“Healing is happening,” she said. “I am only taking half as much pain medication as I was when I left (Bellevue). The pressure on the back of my head (after the accident) was extremely painful.
“I guess it’s all just incredibly inconvenient. I know I will have good days and bad days. I have come to accept that healing from something like this is not linear,” she said.
Burns has missed the first two City Council meetings of 2024, excused by her concerned colleagues. She is not certain when she will return.
“In February, I hope to be allowed back on the computer again and can begin at least listening to council meetings. I want to be able to get back to responding to emails. I am grateful for my fellow council members who have done work (for the 1st Ward) in my absence,” she said.
She admits to understanding the irony of her injury, given her education and professional development.
“I studied the brain passionately in college. It was my favorite thing.
“I love how much power it has. Not only over basic (bodily) functions, but also in who you are.”